Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Traveling Alone

Thanks God for my little checklist post that I made a while ago. I just sat down and thought, "I feel like blogging, what can I write about?" and lucky for me, I'd already come up with a list!! I may make the blog checklist a regular event.

My whole family went to Grand Cayman- but I was the only one who traveled alone. My sister, brother-in-law and nephew came together; and my parents and brothers came together. I traveled alone. I think I might've been the only person on my entire flight from Atlanta to Grand Cayman who was traveling alone. When we arrived and had to go through customs, I looked around and realized that everyone around me was in a group. Who goes to Grand Cayman alone? No one. And now I'm in Chicago on my away rotation- alone. My closest (best-est) friend is a solid hour L ride away.

This isn't a pity-me post. This is a post about how much I love traveling alone. I love when I have no one to check in with. I love that I am 100% in charge of myself and my situation. I love that I'm not responsible for anyone else, and that I don't have to consider anyone else's opinions. I can go when I want, to where I want, how I want. No one else chimes in on which airport resturant to go to, or how early we should get to the airport, or whether or not there's time to do something before the flight starts boarding. It's whatever I want, 100% of the time (I'm really not as selfish as that makes me sound).

I'm enjoying being in Chicago alone too. When I'm at home, I constantly check in with people. When will my boyfriend want to eat dinner? So when should I run so that we can eat together? When does so-and-so want to see that movie? Oh, someone else wants a different movie? And they can't go until tomorrow? Maybe I'm more of an introvert than I recoginze, but that stuff drains the hell out of me. Traveling alone and being in Chicago alone is an incredible energy boost for me, because it lets me re-establish that warm, wonderful feeling of having control over aspect of my life. I've ingrained so deeply traveling alone = relaxation that I feel relaxed when I even just go on an airline's website. That's probably weird.

And a picture from Grand Cayman, because I have 7GB of them and no one reads a blog without picutres.

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About Me

I'm a surgeon, passionate about innovating and advancing the field of surgery. I've started this blog to share my own ideas and to develop a community of medical professionals, engineers and any other thinkers who want to make surgery safer, better and cheaper. All surgeons are innovators- we just needed a place to tell our stories.